The hum of arcane machinery filled Bahumbus’s chaotic workshop, a low, vibrating pulse that echoed through the walls like the heartbeat of some massive, slumbering beast. Blueprints hung suspended mid-air, layered sheets of glowing parchment rotating slowly, each etched with intricate glyphs and nonsensical equations. Scattered runes, half-complete and flickering weakly, hovered over the cluttered workbenches, casting sharp slashes of light and shadow across the room. Disassembled mechanical limbs twitched on nearby tables—metal fingers curling and flexing of their own accord—as though eager to be made whole again.

  At the center of it all loomed a massive city map, floating just above a stone table. The map pulsed with life, its web of ley lines drawn in threads of brilliant blue light, shifting as if breathing. Along its jagged intersections blinked small crimson dots—pylon placements—each one a keystone in the city’s fragile defensive lattice.

  Amidst the controlled chaos, a brass scroll case lay half-buried beneath a clutter of papers and tools. The metal was dulled with age, but the faint outline of a red rune was still visible—its shape warped and cracked like old scar tissue. Bahumbus hadn’t touched it in centuries, yet he didn’t move it. It sat there, a silent accusation.

  Bahumbus hunched over the floating map, his multi-tool flickering wildly between forms—one moment a wrench, the next a quill, then a gleaming arcane stylus. His stubby fingers worked with expert precision, tracing symbols in the air that glowed before sinking into the map’s shifting layers.

  No one in the city even knew he did this—no one in the government, no mages, not even the ones who might have cared once. Partially because Bahumbus never told anyone. Partially because the city didn’t pay attention anymore. It was easier that way—no prying eyes, no endless bureaucratic red tape choking his work. The city had grown too distracted, too fractured, its leaders obsessed with short-term crises while Bahumbus waged a quiet, invisible war against a much longer clock.

  And he preferred it that way. Let them think the defenses maintained themselves. Let them believe someone else was watching the ley lines. Because if they knew how fragile it all really was—if they understood how often he’d barely kept their defenses from collapsing—they’d panic. And Bahumbus didn’t have time for panic. Not now.

  “Reg-E!” Bahumbus barked without turning.

  A soft clank echoed through the workshop as Reg-E trudged into view—his metal feet clicking against the stone floor, gears whirring softly with each step. The autognome, a squat, mechanical figure shaped like a tiny man, carried a small pack overloaded with tools, wires coiling around his arms like steel vines. His polished brass face, complete with etched eyebrows and a rounded noseplate, twisted into a look of calculated focus.His eyes, glowing blue, embedded in his head pulsed as he spoke, his voice crackling slightly through aged vocal circuits.

  “Calculations complete. Defense pylons will cover eighty-seven percent of the city. Probability of success against a direct assault—”

  “Not high enough,” Bahumbus snapped, waving the projection away. “I want ninety-five, minimum. We’re not building a scarecrow here—we’re building a damn wall.”

  Reg-E’s circuits clicked as it recalibrated. “Margin of error increases exponentially past eighty-seven percent. The ley lines can’t handle that much strain.”

  Bahumbus grumbled something under his breath, jabbing the multi-tool into the floating map. The ley lines pulsed angrily, bending under his will. “Then we force it. If the Weave snaps, it snaps. Better it than the whole damn city.”

  Reg-E waited silently for a moment, his eyes flickering. “You’re pushing too hard. This isn’t just about defense, is it?”

  Bahumbus’s hand froze mid-gesture. For a moment, the workshop felt too quiet, the hum of magic receding into a hollow silence. He didn’t turn around.

  “Frayed timelines. Failed safeguards. Missed windows.” Reg-E listed them out flatly. “You’re tracking something bigger.”

  Bahumbus chuckled dryly. “I’m always ten steps ahead, buckethead. Just making sure we’re not walking off a cliff.”

  Reg-E’s eyes dimmed, as though narrowing in suspicion.

  Without warning, Bahumbus pulled a small, battered pocket watch from the folds of his robes. Its brass casing was dented, worn smooth in places, but the oddest detail was the hands—they ticked backward, each second pulling time away rather than pushing it forward. The soft, mechanical clicks filled the air as he held it up to the light.

  Reg-E’s sensors flared. “Temporal residue detected. That’s—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.” Bahumbus snapped the watch shut and stuffed it deep into his pocket. “You don’t want to follow that thread, trust me.”

  Reg-E hesitated, its processors whirring, before shifting focus back to the pylon projections. “Timelines are fraying faster than expected. Probability models are unstable.”

  Bahumbus didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the reversed pocket watch in his hand, thumb absently running over the worn casing. A quiet, fractured thought flickered through his mind: He’s still out there. And he’s closer than they know.

  But he said none of it aloud.

  Instead, he shoved the watch deeper into his robes and returned to the floating map, his hands moving with renewed urgency. The ley lines twisted, bent, and strained—but they held. For now.

  Reg-E floated closer. “Bahumbus, if you’re planning for something worse than Null—”

  “I’m planning for everything,” Bahumbus interrupted, the lie slipping too easily from his lips.

  But the red rune on the brass scroll case glowed faintly, as though it disagreed.

  With a grunt, Bahumbus pulled a crystalline sphere from a drawer beneath the floating city map. He held it up, its surface flickering with latent energy. The sphere pulsed in his hand before rising into the air, light pooling at its center as it began to spin.

  The workshop dimmed, shadows stretching as the sphere bloomed into a swirling orb of light—an unstable projection of fractured futures. Within its glow, time itself seemed to ripple.

  Bahumbus traced a line in the air with his multi-tool, locking the orb into a single point.

  The futures began to unfold.

  First, Bahumbus saw Krungus—his white robes now tattered and blackened with ash—stood at the edge of a collapsing field, the ground beneath him fracturing into an abyss. He reached out with both hands, his face twisted in desperation, but Utopianna was already being pulled into the shadows. Her floral robes unraveled midair, scattering like petals in a storm as dark tendrils wrapped around her. Her hand stretched toward Krungus until it began to gray, aging impossibly fast. His scream echoed, raw and broken, before the vision flickered.

  Next came Eugene, standing atop a crumbling stone bridge, the baby clutched tightly to his chest. In front of him loomed Null, a towering figure of swirling void and consuming darkness. Eugene’s magic sputtered and flared—unstable, wild—as he fired spells into the darkness, each one collapsing into itself as it hit Null’s form. The bridge cracked beneath Eugene’s feet, chunks falling into the abyss as he planted his heels, shielding the child as Null pressed forward. The magic around Eugene frayed, thin cracks of light spiderwebbing through the air.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The final vision was brief—a swirl of shadows pulling back to reveal a lone figure standing at the edge of it all. Tall, lean, his braided ponytail cascading down his back, the figure stood still, arms crossed as though waiting. Though his face was obscured by darkness, the faint glint of cold blue eyes shone through, piercing and unfeeling.

  Bahumbus’s breath caught.

  The orb convulsed and then burst, throwing out a pulse of force that plunged the room into darkness.

  The light returned, flickering weakly as Bahumbus stumbled backward, his chest heaving. He clutched at the table, the metal cold beneath his fingers.

  “It’s too soon... or I’m too late,” he muttered, voice low.

  Reg-E floated closer, its eyes flickering. “You saw something bad.”

  Bahumbus barked a hollow laugh. “Bad is the baseline these days.”

  But his hand was already in his pocket, fingers curling around a pocket watch, its edges worn smooth from years of handling. His thumb traced the familiar grooves, an old habit he couldn’t shake.

  The weight of the visions pressed heavy on him. Futures branching, collapsing. Possibilities fraying.

  But the worst part? Deep down, Bahumbus wasn’t sure if he was preparing for a future he could stop—

  —or one he’d already failed to prevent.

  The echoes of the vision still clung to the edges of the workshop, like a storm refusing to pass. Bahumbus busied himself with the floating map again, though his hands shook slightly—something Reg-E did not fail to notice.

  Reg-E hovered closer, its glowing eye dimming thoughtfully. “You’re planning for more than Null. You’re planning for someone.”

  The words landed like a hammer blow. Bahumbus’s hand tensed around the multi-tool, the tip sparking against the floating map before he caught himself. He didn’t turn to face Reg-E immediately. For a beat too long, he let the silence stretch, the hum of the workshop deepening around them.

  Finally, he exhaled through his nose, voice low. “The past doesn’t stay buried. And when it digs itself out? It comes back angry.”

  Reg-E processed that for a moment, gears whirring faintly. “You’re following a timeline, aren’t you? Not building defenses—executing a plan.”

  Bahumbus almost smiled at that—an expression that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s all plans, Reg-E. Layers on layers. But you’re asking the wrong questions.”

  Reg-E’s circuits buzzed louder. “Deadlines. Missed windows. You said those earlier. Are you racing against something?”

  Bahumbus turned this time, his face a mask of forced calm, but there was steel behind his words. “Some questions don’t have safe answers.”

  Reg-E hovered in silence, the weight of the warning sinking in. It didn’t press further.

  But Bahumbus felt the ticking of the reversed pocket watch deep in his robes—steady, merciless.

  And it was running out of time.

  The next pylon sat at the heart of the workshop, taller than the others, its spires wrapped in coils of shimmering wire that twisted like veins beneath translucent plating. Bahumbus circled it, running a hand over its smooth surface, feeling the low thrum of stored magic within. Reg-E hovered nearby, its blue eye rotating as it scanned the pylon.

  “Final one,” Bahumbus muttered, tightening a series of metallic clamps with a twist of his multi-tool. “If this holds, the city gets another day. Maybe two.”

  Reg-E’s eye flickered. “Statistical probability of success at current stability rates: sixty-two percent.”

  “Good enough,” Bahumbus grumbled.

  He activated the pylon. A surge of arcane energy rippled through it, and the air thickened with raw power. The city map above them reacted immediately—ley lines glowing brighter, pulsing in tandem with the pylon’s beat. But then, a flicker. A momentary blackout.

  The lights in the workshop dimmed.

  A deep, hollow pulse shot through the room, followed by a grinding metallic shriek. On the floating map, the ley lines buckled for an instant before snapping back into place—but something else lingered in their wake.

  A small, jagged symbol appeared in the core of the pylon’s projection—a twisted glyph, fractal and layered, pulsing with a dark red glow.

  Bahumbus’s face darkened. “No, no, no—”

  Reg-E drifted closer, scanning the glyph. “Foreign code detected. Chronomantic in structure, but... corrupted. Inconsistent with standard time-magic patterns.”

  Bahumbus’s jaw clenched. “It’s not standard because it’s not supposed to be here.”

  The glyph twisted, lines folding over themselves in impossible patterns, fracturing into mirrored versions before collapsing inward again. Even Reg-E hesitated, its circuits flickering under the strain of reading it.

  “Attempting decryption,” Reg-E announced, thin beams of light extending from its core to interface with the pylon.

  “Stop.”

  Bahumbus’s voice cut through the thick air. Reg-E froze mid-process, the light beams retracting.

  “Some things rot your core,” Bahumbus muttered, moving to the control panel. “You don’t need this in your head.”

  He jabbed the multi-tool deep into the pylon’s access port. The glyph flickered violently before collapsing into a burst of static. The arcane grid pulsed weakly, then stabilized, the foreign spectre wiped clean.

  Reg-E hovered silently for a beat before speaking again. “You didn’t let me finish the analysis.”

  “Didn’t need to.”

  “You recognized the code.”

  Bahumbus didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out the battered pocket watch again, its backward ticking louder than before. His thumb traced its edge as he stared at the now-stable pylon.

  Reg-E’s tone shifted, sharper now. “You’re hiding critical data. If there’s a vulnerability in the grid—”

  “There’s always a vulnerability,” Bahumbus snapped, the words laced with frustration. “But this? This isn’t about weak points in the pylon. It’s about someone already inside the system.”

  Reg-E whirred. “Someone like—”

  “Drop it,” Bahumbus growled, cutting Reg-E off. “Some answers aren’t worth the risk.”

  For a moment, Reg-E hovered in silence, its sensors dimming as if considering whether to push further. But it didn’t.

  Bahumbus turned back to the pylon, hands tightening around the multi-tool, knuckles white. The workshop was eerily silent now, the usual hum of magic reduced to a strained whisper, as if the very walls held their breath. Bahumbus stood over the stabilized pylon, his shoulders heavy with the weight of what he’d seen—and what he hadn’t dared to reveal. The watch in his pocket felt heavier than ever, its familiar grooves now sharp against his calloused fingers.

  Reg-E floated nearby, its eyes dimmed but still focused on Bahumbus. The tension between them stretched thin, the air thick with unspoken accusations.

  “You know this isn’t over,” Reg-E said at last, its voice softer than usual, the faintest trace of concern buried beneath layers of commands and incantations.

  Bahumbus didn’t look up. “It’s never over. Not for me.”

  He approached the main control panel, where the city’s ley lines still flickered in their delicate dance. With careful precision, he inserted the multi-tool into the override port and keyed in a complex series of glyphs—patterns so layered and arcane that even Reg-E hesitated to process them.

  “Installing the override,” Bahumbus muttered. “Only two people get access—Krungus and me.”

  Reg-E’s eye pulsed. “You considered adding Eugene.”

  Bahumbus’s hand hovered over the console, the name lingering in the air. “He’s not ready. Not yet.”

  The override finalized with a heavy click, and the ley lines flared, stabilizing—at least for now.

  Bahumbus stepped back, his gaze drifting toward the brass scroll case, its red rune now pulsing in slow, steady beats. He clenched his jaw, but didn’t touch it. Instead, he turned back to the workshop, taking in the chaos he called control.

  Reg-E drifted closer. “Bahumbus… you’re scared.”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “I’m always scared. That’s how I stay alive.”

  But there was something else behind the words—an old fear, deeper than timelines and pylons. A shadow loomed over everything, intangible yet suffocating, its weight heavy in every calculation Bahumbus made. He kept it buried, locked behind walls of precision and denial, but it pressed closer with each passing day, a constant, unseen presence pulling at the frayed edges of his carefully controlled world. They had only just gotten his brother back, The City couldn't afford to lose him quite yet.

  He moved to the window, where the city sprawled out below, its towers reaching like fingers into the thick, clouded sky. In the distance, faint lights flickered—defenses online, but fragile.

  “You think it’ll hold?” Reg-E asked.

  Bahumbus didn’t answer. He just watched as the ley lines shimmered, feeling the distant thrum of the Weave, stretched thinner than ever.

  Finally, he spoke, voice low. “We’ve bought time. That’s all we ever buy.”

  He turned away, the reversed pocket watch ticking louder in his robes, the sound almost a taunt.

  Reg-E watched silently as Bahumbus left the workshop, his heavy footsteps echoing in the emptiness.

  The countdown had already begun.